January 22, 2021
Iran seized a small South Korean tanker sailing in the Persian Gulf just days before a senior Korean diplomat arrived in Iran for policy talks.
Iran has been loudly castigating Korea for keeping Iranian assets in Korea locked up under US sanctions. It has been very vocal about Korea, though it has not complained similarly about other countries that also have Iranian assets locked up.
South Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-kun arrived in Tehran January 10 to discuss the frozen assets. But one week before his arrival, on January 4, Iran seized a small, 7,000-ton product tanker, accusing it of polluting the Persian Gulf.
Now, the vice foreign minister had two issues to negotiate.
He left Iran two days later with no indication any progress had been made on either issue—and Korean-Iranian relations headed for the cellar.
Korean newspapers accused Iran of taking the tanker Hankuk Chemi and its 20-crewmembers hostage. But Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabii said, “If anyone is a hostage-taker, it is South Korea’s government, which has taken hostage more than $7 billion of our revenues for no reason.”
(While Iran repeatedly uses the figure of $7 billion, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said the total was actually $9 billion denominated in won, the South Korean currency.)
The money is the payments made by Korea for Iranian oil.
On January 20, Central Bank Governor Abdolnasser Hemmati said “some” of Iran’s money blocked abroad had been unfrozen. Hemmati did not say how much. And he didn’t say from what country they had been freed. Nor did he say if there were any restrictions on the release, such as that the funds could only be used for medicines and medical products.
The last time Iran seized a foreign tanker was a year and a half ago when it seized a British tanker while Iran was concerned because Gibraltar, a British colony, had impounded an Iranian tanker saying it said was taking oil to Syria in violation of a UN Security Council resolution.
Iranian news reports said Iran told the Koreans the issue of the tanker was in the hands of the Judiciary and the Foreign Ministry could do nothing about it. There were no reports seen on the talks about the frozen assets.
Immediately after the tanker was seized, the Korean Navy moved its destroyer assigned to anti-piracy patrols off Somalia to a point near the entry to the Strait of Hormuz. But it pulled the destroyer back before the vice foreign minister arrived in Tehran.